The GIGABYTE Z390 Aorus Pro WIFI Motherboard Review: A Sturdy $200 Surprise
by Gavin Bonshor on April 12, 2019 10:00 AM ESTCPU Performance, Short Form
For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We put the memory settings at the CPU manufacturers suggested frequency, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.
For Z390 we are running an updated version of our test suite, including OS and CPU cooler. This has some effect on our results.
Rendering - Blender 2.78: link
For a render that has been around for what seems like ages, Blender is still a highly popular tool. We managed to wrap up a standard workload into the February 5 nightly build of Blender and measure the time it takes to render the first frame of the scene. Being one of the bigger open source tools out there, it means both AMD and Intel work actively to help improve the codebase, for better or for worse on their own/each other's microarchitecture.
Streaming and Archival Video Transcoding - Handbrake 1.1.0
A popular open source tool, Handbrake is the anything-to-anything video conversion software that a number of people use as a reference point. The danger is always on version numbers and optimization, for example the latest versions of the software can take advantage of AVX-512 and OpenCL to accelerate certain types of transcoding and algorithms. The version we use here is a pure CPU play, with common transcoding variations.
We have split Handbrake up into several tests, using a Logitech C920 1080p60 native webcam recording (essentially a streamer recording), and convert them into two types of streaming formats and one for archival. The output settings used are:
- 720p60 at 6000 kbps constant bit rate, fast setting, high profile
- 1080p60 at 3500 kbps constant bit rate, faster setting, main profile
- 1080p60 HEVC at 3500 kbps variable bit rate, fast setting, main profile
Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7: link
The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 1-2 minutes on high-end platforms.
Compression – WinRAR 5.4: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30-second 720p videos.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz, and IPC win in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.
Neuron Simulation - DigiCortex v1.20: link
The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. Results are taken during the steady-state period in a 32k neuron simulation and represented as a function of the ability to simulate in real time (1.000x equals real-time).
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austinsguitar - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
not with gigabytes current bios implementation.imaheadcase - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
What a wonderful insight into something only you know.austinsguitar - Saturday, April 13, 2019 - link
i dont want to brag (because i really dislike gigabyte recently) but i have owned almost all chipsets from intel going back to p45 exclusively on gigabyte boards. i used them for a solid 10 years, religiously. they were my only board to go to, until i got tricked and humiliated buy the am4 boards they came out with on the mid end. never again man. im on an msi board and there is no going back. the bios is just buggy on all gigabyte boards. its not the best. they need to change things man.GlossGhost - Sunday, April 14, 2019 - link
Got an H81 Gigabyte board, and, I understand it's cheap but that bios is not only ugly but utterly buggy as well, surely they could have done better especially seeing what Asus can do for the same price.LoneWolf15 - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
I'm going to be straight up....I've been building since the 80386. My first computer job was for a builder for three and a half years...I'm now 24 years into an IT career.
The BIOS could be better on this board in that it's somewhat disorganized, and not as intuitive as it could be. However, the features all work properly (currently at the F9 revision) and the board itself is rock-solid hardware.
This board, hands down, has the best VRM and feature implementation of boards in the mid-price range. ASUS delivers a better BIOS, but when you consider you can get this board for $180USD, I find the ROG Z390-H, Z390-F don't have as good of VRM setup, and the Z390-E doesn't either and costs far more. The MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC has almost as good VRMs, but its featureset and polish is not quite as nice.
Considering the combination of features, price, and stability, the Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi is a mid-price bargain. I'm running an i9-9900K at constant 4.7GHz turbo on all eight cores without any effort on my part, at 100% load for days on end (Folding@Home) with two GTX 1070s in WiFi and it hasn't complained once.
psedog - Thursday, July 18, 2019 - link
I'm running this board with a 8700k (Delidded) at 5.3Ghz all core with a AVX offset of 2. It passes every stress test I've thrown at it and the intel XTU has me in the top 3% of 8700k's. Not bad for a $200 board.See the results for yourself. Look up my username in hwbot. (Adding the like flags this post as spam.)
Native7i - Sunday, April 14, 2019 - link
I’ve used z97x gigabyte board for 5 years straight not knowing RAM running at single channel all the time. Tried to fix it every possible way but never got it right. Last bios update was stuck on beta bios so, no help from gigabyte either. Right now I need new pc but also very sketchy about gigabyte boards.DanNeely - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
If your ram is running single channel you plugged the second dimm into the wrong slot. 2 of the 4 slots are wired to channel A, the other two to channel B. Nothing in software can change which slots go where.LoneWolf15 - Saturday, May 25, 2019 - link
I'm going to say the same thing DanNeely said... if you did that, it is very likely you didn't have the DIMMS plugged into the correct sockets. Before this board, I had Gigabyte's Z97X-UD5H-Black. I ran it in 16GB (2 x 8GB) and 32GB (4 x 8GB) configurations and never had this problem. I ran the board for five years, with an i7-4790K running all cores at max turbo of 4.4GHz, with no hiccups whatsoever, solid as a rock.I like ASUS' BIOS, but not their misleading VRMS, nor their quality control (multiple reported issues there). I don't think MSI is bad at this range, but the similar Z390 Pro Carbon AC is $20-25 more. I've had this board for three weeks, two of them running an i9-9900K at 100% load on max eight-core turbo of 4.7GHz with two GTX 1070 cards also running on high load (Folding@Home) 24/7 and it has been rock solid. About the only things I wish I had were the debug LED (used rarely) and the power/reset buttons on the backplate (not found without paying above $250 for a board, not worth it); those are nice, but not necessary. I wouldn't hesitate to buy this board again
Foeketijn - Monday, April 15, 2019 - link
Unfortunately the people considering the Bios on a mobo are really a niche. I just put together two AM4 builds. Gigabyte gave some troubles untill I found the right bios. Asus also gave me troubles. 4 creative ways to update the bios. None worked. In the end asus told me to replace the thing because apperantly the current version was known not to work propperly.I'm on a time schedule. Who has time for that. I just hope the customer never resets it's bios.